Wayland focusing on creation care

November 5, 2013

PLAINVIEW – Wayland Baptist University will celebrate its fourth annual Creation Care Week beginning Monday, placing specific emphasis on taking care of God’s creation.
Organized by Dr. Herbert Grover, Dean of the School of Mathematics and Sciences at Wayland, Creation Care week is designed to impress upon students the impact that people make on the environment around them.

“Everything we do impacts our environment in some way,” Grover said. “What we suppose is that the environment is not degraded by what we do, but in many instances it is. Its ability to sustain human populations is limited.”

Grover said this year’s emphasis is on discovering a passion for creation care and how individuals can “let their light shine” in their approach to environmentalism.
Ben Lowe, a Christian environmentalist, will be the featured guest for Creation Care Week, speaking in various classes on campus, as well as the weekly chapel service at 11 a.m. on Wednesday. Lowe will also present at 3:30 p.m on Wednesday in the Nunn Business Building auditorium. Both events are open to the public.

According to the InterVarsity Press website, Lowe is the director of young adult ministries for the Evangelical Environmental Network, promoting creation care to various organizations, colleges and universities. The son of missionary parents, Lowe was raised in Malaysia where his family often dealt with water shortages and bad air quality. These experiences influenced his development. Lowe majored in environmental studies at Wheaton College where he helped organize the school’s first national Climate Change Summit.

Lowe is the author of Green Revolution, a book encouraging individuals to make a difference in their own lives as well as others by mobilizing to care for creation.
Dr. Grover said it is the social responsibility of Christians to take care of the environment, and by so doing, care for the less fortunate of whom Jesus spoke in Matthew chapter 25. Grover said it is the poor and disadvantaged people worldwide who are affected the most by environmental degradation.

“It’s not just tree hugging,” Grover said. “It’s caring for ‘the least of these.’ That’s who, I think, Jesus calls us to care for the most. If we as Christians don’t adopt a firm commitment to caring for God’s creation in such a way that it can sustain our hum
an populations, then we are going to see more and more suffering in the world.”

As part of Creation Care Week, Wayland will host an electronics recycling collection day on Saturday, Nov. 16, from 9 a.m. – 12 p.m. The WBU Information Technologies department, along with business students involved in the Enactus program will collect household electronic items to be recycled. Items will be separated into containers behind the university library, then taken to the recycling center.